


Offside

by bunnoculars



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 23:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15107210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: Shinee "watches" World Cup 2010. Minho's in it for the football, but nobody else cares.





	Offside

**Author's Note:**

> World Cup 2018 has been really amazing so far, but I went back in time for this fic. The 2010 World Cup was my first one, and even if it wasn't the most exciting tournament in retrospect, the nostalgia is real. Originally this was all supposed to be from Minho’s POV, but then I realized he would actually watch the games lol.

Minho didn’t expect this to go well.

“I thought I was done with homework when I graduated,” Kibum says loudly.

He still takes one and passes it down, until the last bracket reaches Minho again. That he got them to take five like this at all is amazing. Usually when they hit a break, they all scatter, to the bathroom, the vending machine, the alley out back, anywhere that’s not the practice room. But here they are, in a sprawling circle on the floor, sweaty and silent, five solid hours of “Lucifer” ringing in their ears and settling into their muscles.

If they want him to feel guilty about it, they’ll have to try harder. He can take a few stink eyes, no problem.

“I didn’t make you guys do the group stage.” They don’t need to know that’s only because it was enough work to round them up to watch their own team’s matches, and he was too lazy to keep track of that many games. “And I’m not making you bet on anything. Be grateful.”

“Don’t you have any friends you could do this with?” Kibum says, and his smirk says everything Minho needs to know. Kibum doesn’t need to go on, “As in, people who actually care?”

And Minho doesn’t need to say, “As in, people I never get to see?” It’s all just for show, it’s all just because. He lets himself smile for real, and Kibum’s mouth twitches before he cuts his eyes away, and the joke’s probably over. “You’re stuck with me. Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s okay if you get everything wrong.”

Kibum scoffs at him and grabs a pen. He’s so easy.

“Which teams are good?” Jinki says.

If he wants Minho to do his thinking for him…

“Spain is the best. They’re like Barcelona, minus Messi, plus Casillas and Ramos. And Villa.”

Jinki blinks at him, says, “I don’t know what any of those things are, but sounds good,” and picks up a pen too, takes Spain straight to the final.

He’s even easier.

Too easy. It’s only Minho’s conscience that makes him tell Jinki, “They’re always good and they always do worse than they should. They’ve never won before.”

“Uh huh.”

“The same five teams win every time,” Minho says, in case Jinki didn’t get it the first time. With him, there’s listening, and then understanding, and then caring. Getting past the first level is the hardest, and it’s still so close to getting nowhere with him it makes Minho all kinds of crazy.

Jinki turns that against him.

“If they’re the best it shouldn’t matter,” he says, which Minho really can’t fight him on. He smiles, and that’s all the warning Minho gets before Jinki goes on, “If you want to play it safe, I understand, Minho-yah.”

Minho can’t _not_ fight him on that. All it takes is a few scribbles of his pen, spreading his fingers over the paper so it doesn’t skid across the floor, and he kicks Brazil out, lets the Netherlands survive. They didn’t win way back when they had Cruyff and probably should have, but all of the sudden they’re going to win now. Minho can’t take it back.

“Who’d you pick to win?”

Jonghyun. Minho doesn’t have to look to know he’s asking Taemin. And Taemin is the only one clueless enough to say, “America.”

Jonghyun laughs his ass off. Minho might too.

Taemin doesn’t get it. “What, they’re no good?” he asks Minho. “They always win everything, though.”

“They suck, Taeminnie,” Minho says, as soon as he can breathe. “Change it, go on.”

Taemin doesn’t bother. He’s already onto the next thing, scooting closer to Jonghyun, trying to get a look at his bracket, prying his arm away. Minho has to raise himself on his elbows to see for himself, and in the time it takes him to make out Argentina, upside down and atop a teetering stack of cross-outs, Jonghyun first fends Taemin off, then wrestles him away, makes everything ten times harder than it has to be before he tells him, so easily, “Messi.”

Football is a team sport and Argentina has a madman coaching them, but okay. Argentina isn’t the US, and Maradona won it for Argentina as a player at least, and Messi is Messi. Minho lets Jonghyun make his own mistakes, and returns to doing the same.

Before he gets a chance, Kibum slaps his down on top of Minho’s, everything scrawled out in English letters, and makes as if to leave. He gets maybe two steps away before Minho registers what he’s seeing. “You think _we’re_ going to win?”

Kibum throws him a look over his shoulder. “Why the hell would I vote for anyone else?”

Minho already gave up being smart thanks to Jinki, but still, the only thing in his head was getting it right. Now he’s looking at his bracket, specifically the part where he has South Korea crashing out of the round of sixteen, because this is real life and there’s no way that won’t happen, and wishing he were half as cool as Kibum.

He’ll get over it in time to win their pool.

 

The World Cup means one thing to Jinki: chimaek.

Kibum will cut him off at two beers and he wishes he’d ordered another chicken, what with Minho eating his nerves and Taemin eating his boredom, but they’re mounting their comeback in a few weeks, and Jinki is pushing his upper weight limit. He should be grateful, they’re all protecting him from being sent to the gym. Instead he’s biding his time. The other two can’t keep this up forever, they’ll slow down, and at some point Kibum is going to look the other way. Jinki will win in the end.

The country will too. Hopefully.

_“God fucking dammit!”_

They’re losing as of now.

Jinki peels his eyes off the screen to check on Minho, just in time to watch him flop onto his back, pound the floor with his fists and feet, thumping his head back with each, “Fuck. fuck. fuck. _Fuck!”_

“We’re eight minutes in,” Jinki reminds him. “We have eighty-two minutes to score once.”

“Plus stoppage time.”

Minho’s not snapping at him, he’s snapping at the world, and it doesn’t cost Jinki much to keep his patience, agree, “Plus stoppage time.” Whatever keeps Minho happy.

Kibum ruins it, the way he always does. He puts everything into sinking down into the couch cushions, stretching his legs out, so there’s no strength in it when he kicks Minho. As soon as he opens his mouth, though, Jinki stops looking. He’s not doing anything, he’s just watching the game.

“Jinki hyung’s right,” Kibum says for the first time in history, but then he follows that up with, “Are you going to be a mess the whole time? Keep it down if you can’t get it together, downstairs will make a noise complaint again.”

That’s not what Jinki was saying. And Kibum looks more nervous, face tight, voice sharp, decked out in layers and layers of red, blue, white, and black instead of pajamas like any normal person, but Jinki’s not going to say that out loud.

He gets up to get his second beer, and grabs an extra one. Just in case. Or something.

“If they do they’re not Korean,” Jonghyun’s saying. “Let it all out, Minho-yah.”

They always act like Jinki’s the troll, but _he_ never does it on purpose. He just waits Kibum out in front of the fridge.

“I don’t see you putting your body on the line, are you a patriot? Are you Korean?”

Jinki should be safe.

Then Taemin says, “He almost ripped my hair out, I could feel his sincerity,” and it’s too late, Jinki came back just in time for Jonghyun to go to pieces, get that stupid look on his face. Before he was braiding Taemin’s hair, and now he’s gazing down at him where Taemin’s leaning back against his legs, massaging Taemin’s scalp, asking him stuff like, “Did I hurt you? Is that better?” in a voice that has Jinki dying on the inside.

They should just make out already. In the meantime Jinki reclaims his spot on the floor between Taemin and Minho, and returns to his own date. They left him nothing but white meat, but he’s okay with that. Jinki’s not like them, when it comes to chicken he doesn’t play around. He’s in love. He can find beauty in every part of it.

He makes it last, too, all the way into the second half. Then he’s stuck waiting for something to happen like the rest of them. When the beer adds up he figures he might as well do the whole waiting thing in the bathroom.

All of two seconds later the living room explodes. Because of course.

“Did we score? Did we win? Did we score? Is it safe to come out, are you guys getting murdered?”

Yes. Tied, duh. YES. Oh my fucking God, hyung.

And of course he’s there to see it when Uruguay makes it two-one, and Kibum flops back on the couch, announces to the ceiling, “This is complete fucking bullshit.”

And it’s one hundred percent beside the point, so of course Taemin brings it up, and saves Jinki the trouble. “You’re finished, hyung.”

“You’re next,” Kibum retorts, no bite to it. He spends the dying minutes of the game with his head in his hand, fist jammed against his cheek, all the fight gone out of him. “Whatever. I’m out of reasons to watch, too.”

As long as there’s even one second of play left, Minho won’t land back on planet earth, so Jinki deals with Kibum first. Has a staring contest with the third beer he’s only ever looked at from afar, ends his feelings, and presses it to Kibum’s knee, cold and sweaty.

Kibum snatches it away and snaps it open. Right before he chugs it, he gives Jinki this look that says _I’m not in the mood to say thanks, but thanks._

Jinki’s not in the mood to say _you’re welcome,_ either, so it works out.

 

“How come they’re all balding?”

“Don’t you think their hairdos are a bigger problem?”

“Why did you look at me when you said that?”

“It’s from heading the ball,” Minho cuts in.

“Brain injuries?”

“The balding thing, hyung.”

Minho again, too loud this time. Jonghyun has to open his eyes, just to check on Taemin. Still asleep, head heavy on Jonghyun’s thigh, fingers curled into his sweatpants and hand warm through to his skin. Once he looks, he can’t really stop, and the others won’t catch him at it, huddled together on the floor with their eyes glued to the screen.

“Wow, maybe you would’ve been better off playing football,” Kibum says. “As it is you’ll still go bald, just from stress.”

“One, men in my family don’t bald.” If Jonghyun weren’t so busy looking at Taemin’s he’d love to see Minho’s face right about now. “Two, I’m not the one who balded himself—”

“Half shaved. It’s trendy. It’s not like I’d expect you two to get it.”

“—and three, I’m trying to watch the game. If you two won’t shut up, leave me out of it. You’re both worse than Jonghyun hyung.”

Jonghyun pushes his toes into the small of Minho’s back, snaps his spine bolt upright before his brain catches up and he slouches forward again, reaching back to grab at him.

“Nobody’s worse than you, Minho,” Jonghyun says, just because he can. “Keep it down, Taeminnie’s sleeping.”

Kibum glances back at him, smirking. “I thought you were too?”

Jonghyun doesn’t bother to reply, because whatever he comes up with, Kibum will see right through him. Maybe he doesn’t know that Jonghyun’s been sitting here for who knows how long, running his fingers through Taemin’s hair and taking peeks at him through his eyelashes, but he does know Jonghyun likes Taemin a little too much.

Kibum snorts and leaves him to it. Okay, way too much. Kibum had Jonghyun all figured out before he even knew his own feelings. The problem is Taemin doesn’t get it, no matter how many different ways Jonghyun finds to tell him. He should probably just try saying it out loud.

“It’s too late,” Kibum says out of nowhere.

Jonghyun kind of freaks out, but Jinki knows better. He’s shaking his head, saying, “Too early. We have work in a couple hours, I told you to nap,” and Kibum isn’t a mind reader after all, he’s just tired of getting up at three a.m. to watch people kick a ball around halfway across the world.

Minho definitely is not.

“What the hell. I would’ve scored that, they can’t even tap it in. It’s like they’re asking to lose. It’s all about timing, you cannot fuck that up.”

Jonghyun’s not sure who Minho’s worked himself up into rooting for, Ghana or the United States, but he’d have to look at the screen to find out. What he is sure of is that he’s not telling Jonghyun he’ll lose Taemin if he doesn’t confess already, and the universe isn’t speaking to Jonghyun through Kibum and Minho of all people, and not everything is about him. It’s just, his head is in a really, really weird place, and Taemin is so pretty he’s making it impossible to think.

“Is this the second half?”

The other two ignore him, because the clock’s right there, but Jinki takes pity on him. “Seventy-fifth minute, Jonghyunnie. Fifteen minutes left.”

That’s no time at all. Taemin shifts, murmurs, sighs. For a few seconds Jonghyun is paralyzed, heart in his throat, wondering what he should do if Taemin opens his eyes and catches Jonghyun staring. If Taemin sits up and scoots over to the other side of the couch and makes Jonghyun stop touching him. What would happen if he just leaned down and pressed his mouth to Taemin’s, what sounds Taemin might make, what he’d taste like.

Taemin sleeps through all of that.

It’s still a little dangerous, even on his own. Jonghyun’s body is running hot, and the room is growing lighter, sunlight kissing Taemin’s face, and he looks prettier than ever, now that Jonghyun is minutes away from having to give him up.

“Do you guys want eggs?” Jinki says, when they’re into added time.

“You ate the mother last night, and now you’re going back for the child?” Kibum scoffs. He knows as well as Jonghyun that Jinki would eat the bones if he could. The difference is Jonghyun doesn’t have the energy to judge him for it. Kibum always does. “Forget it, I’m going to bed. Just clean this shit up, okay? Don’t try to leave it for Ahjumma, or I’ll kill you.”

Jinki lets him have the last word. “Jonghyunnie?”

Jonghyun isn’t a morning person, or a breakfast person. “Taeminnie will.”

“Taeminnie will what?”

This time when Jonghyun looks down into his face, he finds Taemin squinting up at him. He almost punches Jonghyun in the face when he goes into a stretch, and leaves Jonghyun dizzy anyway, shirt riding up and pant legs catching against the cushions, arch of his back, line of his neck, cute navel and pretty, pretty legs. When Taemin pushes himself up, lifts his head from Jonghyun’s lap, he’s almost grateful. Almost.

“I can’t win anymore?”

Huh?

“Maybe if you get literally everything else right, but that’s not gonna happen,” Minho says, before Jonghyun rediscovers the power of speech. He stands, passes his hand over Taemin’s hair. “You would still have a chance if you’d listened to me. You will next time, right, Taeminnie~?”

“If next time is something important, I’ll think about it,” Taemin says, giving it zero thought now.

Jonghyun can’t stop the laughter bubbling up his chest, but it’s okay, he catches Minho smiling on his way out of the room.

Taemin turns to him, smiling. “Did I miss anything?”

Jonghyun hesitates. If he’s waiting for the moment to come to him, for a sunbeam to slant in through the window, birds to start singing, some kind of sign from Taemin that Jonghyun does any of the same things to him, he’ll wait forever. Jinki’s banging pans around and Kibum’s snores carry out into the hall, and Minho just started the shower, and Jonghyun’s been up all night and he’s not a fairy like Taemin, he’s only human, he probably looks like shit.

Still, the feeling is here.

“I don’t know,” Jonghyun says, “I wasn’t watching the game.”

He doesn’t know he’s reached out until he sees his hand, and then he goes with it, cups Taemin’s cheek and steps closer. Closer. Taemin’s lips are right there, right. there. And then all of the sudden Taemin’s hand is, too, flaking crap out of Jonghyun’s eyes, and it’s like Jonghyun walked straight into a wall. Taemin is one hundred percent focused on him and totally oblivious at the same time, and his touch is so gentle, and this is all so normal, and how is Jonghyun supposed to kiss him if he’s going to be like this.

And then Taemin asks him in response, “Did you fall asleep too?”

Game over.

 

“Three-zero,” Minho crows.

“Go find somebody who cares,” Jonghyun says, but Taemin catches him smiling. “You’re just talking to yourself.”

The two of them have been at it since Germany scored against Argentina for the first time, only three minutes in. One-zero, and Jonghyun stuck his tongue out at Minho. Two-zero, and Jonghyun made this face that probably shouldn’t have looked so cute, and everything that’s come out of his mouth in the five minutes since has been about how annoying Minho is. And now here they go again. Taemin wants to be annoying, too, if that’s what it’d take to get Jonghyun to remember he exists.

“Can’t they just end it early?” Kibum says. “This is a waste of time.”

Minho doesn’t take the opportunity to lecture them about the rules for the millionth time, just grins at Jonghyun and says, “It is for some people.”

Such as Taemin. Jonghyun’s said like five things to him this whole time, and Jinki stole all his favorite snacks. And now it’s almost one in the morning, and he should be sleeping. He could, he could go and get a head start, skip Jonghyun tossing and turning above his head, Jinki stealing his bed next.

“You still have Messi,” Jinki says, thumping Jonghyun’s back. “See it out. Giving up doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Jonghyun gives him a look like he’s nuts, says, “There’d have to be something for me to give up _on,”_ but Taemin is way ahead of him. Nobody else ever gets Jinki, but he always makes so much sense to Taemin.

Taemin digs his knee into Jonghyun’s thigh until he turns to look. He can’t make himself pout, just says, “Pringles,” but that’s enough. Jonghyun’s there before Jinki can reach over him to pass them to Taemin, and when he presents the canister to Taemin, he smiles at him, opens the cap for him, cards his fingers through Taemin’s hair.

Goes back to the game.

Taemin has zero interest in eating them, but he fakes it for a while, until he finds a gap in Minho’s banter and it’s been long enough for him to say, “Shrimp crackers.”

This time Jonghyun hesitates. “There’s still some kkokal corn left, you like that better.”

Before Taemin can open his mouth, before he can even work up the will to choose between them, because if there was a third option where Jonghyun keeps looking at him forever without waiting for Taemin to say anything either way…Kibum ruins everything. Leans down from the couch and dumps the whole grocery bag of snacks in his lap.

“Here, have whatever you want, Jinki hyung doesn’t need to eat anymore.”

Jinki gives Kibum a baleful look. “I don’t?"

That’s as much as he rebels before he just kind of gives up, the way he said you’re not supposed to. Taemin has to do better than that.

“Do you want something to drink?” he says.

He’s looking right at Jonghyun, but Jinki answers first. “Get me a beer?”

“Water.”

Taemin’s not sure if Kibum means for himself, or Jinki, but he doesn’t really care either, especially when Jonghyun gets to his feet, takes Taemin by his elbow and helps him up, says, “You can’t carry all that by yourself,” and then, to Minho, “You haven’t shut your mouth this whole time, you must be thirsty.”

Minho wants pop, but who cares. Taemin just wants Jonghyun, and right now he has him all to himself.

“Do you want water, Taeminnie?” Jonghyun asks him. “If you have caffeine you won’t be able to sleep.”

Right away Taemin wants to say _why are you telling me, what about Minho hyung,_ but all that would do is give Jonghyun a reason to treat him like a child. The best thing he can come up with is, “Then you have water, too,” and Jonghyun rewards him, smiles at him and assents in jondaemal and goes to get the glasses down.

Taemin barely gets the fridge open before suddenly Jonghyun is there, crowding in behind him, reaching over him for the water pitcher. He’s warm and solid, pressed up against Taemin’s back, and he rescues Taemin from having to think by saying right in his ear, “If we’re out of beer, Jinki hyung wants pop,” before he pulls away, and leaves Taemin to put himself back together. Taemin’s still working on that when he leans in to get what he came for, and the blast of cold air just makes his skin feel hotter.

His heart is still racing as he turns back to Jonghyun, and leans against the counter next to him. He takes the first glass as soon as Jonghyun fills it, just trying to cool down, wait this feeling out until he can figure out how to talk again.

Eventually he says, “Is the final next weekend, hyung?”

Jonghyun smiles at him. “Why, are you tired of football?” He bumps Taemin’s shoulder with his own, says in a stage whisper, “Are you tired of Minho?”

It’s easy for Taemin to laugh like Jonghyun wants, when Jonghyun didn’t say it louder, for Minho’s benefit. His smile lingers afterwards, and he lets it, he doesn’t care if Jonghyun sees how easy he is. As long as it’s just the two of them, he doesn’t care. It’s been so long.

“I don’t even remember what we used to do at night,” Taemin finds himself saying.

“You'd always come home just to sleep, there’s nothing to remember,” Jonghyun says. He takes the glass from his hands, which is how Taemin finds out it’s empty. He watches as Jonghyun refills it, the bend of his wrist and the line of his arm, and thinks about draining it again, just to buy some more time. Then, “Is there anything you want to do? Before promotions start?”

There are a lot of things, but right now, if Taemin could just hold Jonghyun’s hand, he thinks he’d be set for life. His own are full, cold cans biting into his fingers, sweating into his shirt, but that’s a stupid excuse, so he puts them down, and tries not to let himself think of another one. Jonghyun’s hand is right there on the countertop, all he has to do is reach out. But what if Taemin makes him jump, spill water all over. What if Jonghyun moves away at the last second. What if Jonghyun babies him again, lets him get away with it and gives him that look that says _how cute~._ Or he could smile at Taemin, and lace their fingers together, pull him in and…something.

Taemin stops dreaming. Slides his hand across the countertop. His fingers touch Jonghyun’s and—

“FOUR-ZERO!!”

Taemin doesn’t bother with Jonghyun’s smile, doesn’t watch him turn away, doesn’t listen to his retort. He just grabs Minho’s pop and shakes it with every last thing he’s got.

 

If it weren’t so much energy, Kibum would hate Minho for setting his internal clock to three a.m. wake-ups, in what should have been his last few weeks of freedom before promotions. He doesn’t even trod on Minho’s hand or anything when he climbs down from his bed, just pushes his foot into his shoulder and shakes him until he groans, opens his eyes. Kibum turns his alarm off on his way to shower. He fucking hates that thing.

Nobody else is up by the time he gets out, because of course they aren’t. All Kibum has to do is lean down and take a deep breath, right in Jinki’s ear, and he stops playing possum. Taemin’s really asleep, so Jonghyun has to save him from Kibum. Which, as if Kibum would ever actually shout in anyone's ear, but whatever. Mission accomplished.

He starts the rice, opens the blinds, tries really hard to think of something else to do, and then accepts his fate and goes into the living room. He’s still first, so he stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes. The four of them can have the floor.

They don’t fight him on that. Minho’s finally memorized the channel number, now that it’s the last time, and for the last time, Kibum settles in for ninety minutes in a hornet’s nest. Minho told him at one point that it’s just the sound of the crowd, some kind of South African horn called a vuvuzela, but Kibum’s never been able to think of it as a cultural experience. He thinks it’s a fucking racket. He thinks vuvuzelas should be banned from planet earth.

Jinki, meanwhile, manages to go a whole half before he starts thinking with his stomach. Out loud, at least.

It’s Taemin’s fault. “What are you going to do if you win, hyung?”

“I’ll buy you all chicken,” Jinki says right away, like he was just waiting for someone to ask.

And if he’s just saying it, too, that’s fine with Kibum. As long as Jinki doesn’t translate dream into action, make Kibum put his foot down before the company does.

“He can’t win, I already did. All your brackets were disasters,” Minho cuts in, because he can’t let anything go.

Jinki takes that in. “Then…if Spain wins, I’ll buy chicken.”

“Spain winning is you winning, hyung,” Jonghyun says. And then he rattles off, all very fast, “Minho’s afraid he’ll lose to you, that’s all. He acts like he knows everything, but he’s all talk,” and before Minho even gets the chance to explode, he adds, “Right, Taeminnie~?”

Taemin gives him that smile he only ever gives Jonghyun, and goes along with it, the way he only ever goes along with Jonghyun. Grabs Jinki’s wrist and pumps his arm and says, “Go, Jinki hyung! Jinki hyung is the best~!” and all Kibum has to do is lie back and not bother deciding which one of them looks cuter.

He’s too busy enjoying Minho’s suffering, anyway.

“I don’t know why I ever asked you guys to watch with me.”

More like he made them. Kibum hears his smile, so he lets it go.

Drifts for a while.

“Aaaaargh. PENALTY. Penalty, goddammit.”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty sure that’s called diving.”

“I spent the last three weeks telling you what that is, Taemin-ah,” Minho snaps. “Now you want to tell me?”

“That was a dive, right, hyung?”

Kibum figures he's talking to Jonghyun or Jinki, before he feels a hand on his arm. He just goes with it, says, “Yeah,” even though he’s worse than Taemin. He's made zero effort to learn the terms Minho's tried to drill into them, and he's not entirely sure what they're arguing about now. But whatever, that does the trick. Minho splutters, and Kibum snuggles into the cushions to hide his smile.

The clock keeps running.

“People in the Netherlands must be huge,” Jonghyun says.

Kibum contemplates getting his first look at them, just as Minho says, “Nah, the Spanish team are midgets, you’d fit right in,” and it’s worth the effort of opening his eyes to watch Jonghyun attack Minho, doing everything he can to annoy the living hell out of him, while Minho does everything he can to keep the screen in clear view.

Long before it stops being entertaining they move on.

Kibum does, too. He only has so long before he has to get up for real.

“Is that legal?” Jinki says.

All Minho has for him is, “The ref decides,” which is bullshit for no, Kibum is pretty sure.

“If he did that here he’d be booked for assault,” Jinki continues, like Minho didn’t say anything. “That’s not football, that’s kung fu.”

“Oh my God, hyung.”

“I don’t know, what do you think, Kibummie?” Jonghyun says, then gives him the answer right away. “Red card?”

Kibum looks straight at Minho and says, “Yeah, probably,” and when Minho turns on him, “You’re not even watching, don’t just say whatever,” he can’t stop himself from laughing. It’s not that the tension is getting to him, or anything. It’s getting to Minho, and Minho is getting to him.

And then, finally.

“GOOOOAAAAALLLL!!!!”

Kibum lies there and lets the room explode around him. Jonghyun and Taemin are up, bouncing on their feet and raining high fives on each other, babbling, shiny-faced and gleeful, and Kibum has one moment where he knows exactly where this is going to go, and then the next Jonghyun’s pulled Taemin in and kissed him. Fucking _finally._

Jinki tries to slip away in the confusion. Like there _is_ any confusion, like all of them didn’t see that coming from months and months away, like Kibum would be struck speechless or something. Like he couldn’t get it together in time to yell after him, “Only one chicken, or you’re dead!”

He turns back to the others in time to see Taemin catch up with what's just happened, and with the rest of them, beet red, all smiles, dazed look on his face like he doesn’t know where he is or how he got there, Jonghyun’s hand in his. And for the first time in history Taemin sees what’s right in front of him, and maybe that’s worse, because Jonghyun stops sneaking glances and stares instead, so lovesick it makes Kibum gag. When Jonghyun pulls Taemin towards the bedroom, he follows blindly, and Kibum has to grab his other hand, save him from himself.

Or from Jonghyun. Definitely from Jonghyun. When Taemin stops he does too, and then he remembers Kibum exists, long enough for Kibum to come up with, “Jinki hyung ordered chicken, it’ll be here in no time,” while he gives Jonghyun a look that says _if you try anything on Taeminnie I will cut your balls off._

That’s that.

Minho’s right where he left him, lying on the floor, forearm thrown over his eyes and strange half-smile splitting his face, like their happiness is his too, and he really, really doesn’t want to admit it. That’s the thing about Minho. He can’t stay mad.

Kibum kicks him. “Are you Dutch or something, what are you getting worked up for?”

“Are they Spanish?” Minho retorts, but he takes a peek at Kibum, then watches him openly as he sits down next to him, like he’s trying to figure him out.

Makes Kibum think a little bit before he opens his mouth again.

“Do you like football more, or do you like being right more?”

“Both,” Minho says immediately. Then he turns it around, says to Kibum, “I guess neither is your thing?”

Kibum just doesn’t like losing. It’d be great if no one ever had to.

“This is the first World Cup I’ve watched at all,” Kibum begins. He’s not sure how to say this other thing, but he wants to try. “Next time you’ll show them.”

“I won our pool, Kibum-ah,” Minho reminds him, like that's supposed to mean something, when Kibum can see how badly he's taking it, being wrong about this one thing. “And anyway, maybe you don’t think so, but I’m pretty sure it won’t take me four years to get over it.”

That’s fair, but for once that’s not what Kibum was saying. For once he wasn’t trying to get a reaction out of Minho, he was just trying to talk to him.

So Kibum tries again. Just comes right out and says, “I mean, let’s have a next time,” and now he can’t take it back. Whatever. This is the kind of thing he probably should spend less time thinking and more time saying out loud, so he goes with it. “Let’s do this again. It was fun.”

This time when Minho smiles, it’s that movie star grin of his, so bright he kind of blinds Kibum, but it’s okay. He looks like himself again.

At some point Jinki’s beloved chicken arrives. Kibum isn’t about to knock on his own bedroom door, so he gets an eyeful of Taemin and Jonghyun making out, but all their clothes are intact and Jonghyun can still meet his eyes. And when they come out to eat and sit with the rest of them, there’s no weirdness. It’s just like before. Jonghyun feeds Taemin and forgets to eat, watching him with the stupidest expression on his face. And whenever he's not looking, it's Taemin's turn, trying to chew and smile at the same time, if he's not so busy staring he doesn't even realize he's doing either. Jinki stuffs himself, and if he gains any more weight he’ll be SM’s problem instead, but still, Kibum can’t just let him dig his own grave. Minho finally moves on from the final to pick apart the entire tournament from beginning to end, and every once in a while one of them summons the energy to feign interest, enough to keep him talking.

And Kibum?

He’s happy right where he is.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up, I’m working on something longer than normal atm, so if I don’t post for a while, it’s not because I’m not writing!


End file.
